


Little Bit of Comfort

by AugustStories



Series: Personal Writing Challenge October 2019 [17]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s15e01 Back and to the Future, Episode: s15e02 Raising Hell, Fear, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Fluff, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 20:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21124949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustStories/pseuds/AugustStories
Summary: If he could spare an innocent child the terror he had gone through as a kid then the misery in his life just became a little smaller and less choking. No child deserved that fear, no one did, but especially not children whose imagination just made it all worse still.





	Little Bit of Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> To support my friend with her inktober challenge, I made myself a writing challenge so she wouldn't be handling prompt works on a daily basis alone. I will be posting all works that aren't based on original writing where you guys wouldn't understand the context, this is day 20. 
> 
> Fell a little behind because I wasn't feeling so good yesterday. Today's prompt #21 will be something for an original storyverse I can't post because it would make no sense so I will see you again tomorrow for #22.
> 
> As for this story: I totally forgot if we learned the name of the little girl Sam saved from the crazy clown. If we did, forgive me, I cannot remember and I couldn't find anything by googling. So I made it up here.

He hadn't meant to scare the child. If there was something that he always took great notice of in this job was to make sure that children who crossed their paths were affected as little as possible. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't because the monsters were fixated on the in particular.

But if he could spare an innocent child the terror he had gone through as a kid then the misery in his life just became a little smaller and less choking. No child deserved that fear, no one did, but especially not children whose imagination just made it all worse still. 

This time around he feared though that he had failed in achieving that goal, two innocent girls had been murdered by Bloody Mary, a group of children celebrating a birthday had been slaughtered. The little girl Cas and him had saved from the murder clown along with her mother had seen terrible things, had seen friends get killed and terrying monsters hunt her down. He couldn't help the children who had lost their lives, couldn't even avenge them and he was quite sure their souls might have just been added to the load haunting them.

\--

After they had saved Harlan as best as they could in their current hopeless seeming situation, they decided to remain another night before telling the townspeople that the gas leak was contained and then they would leave before the actual authorities came in. It was only a very short drive from Harlan back to Lebanon and the bunker but they were all tired and worn out and not even Dean wanted to drive right now, though Sam suspected that it might also just be the memories of Mom and Jack awaiting the in the bunker that were affecting Dean's decisions.

He was scared by Dean's complete loss of hope, faith and own beliefs right now, it terrified him right down to his core because when all else had failed Dean had still believed in them. In Team Free Will. And now he was derailing so hard and Dean's very base of existence had been ripped away from him, shaken as he had no doubt already been from the last year and the whole ordeal with Michael, Dean didn't know how to handle it anymore. Sam saw all that. He also saw how his brother was desperately trying to shove it all under anger. At the world in general. At Chuck. At Cas. Frankly even at Sam in some way.

His anger was the only thing keeping Dean together still and Sam feared for the moment where that wouldn't be enough anymore. He had already thought that moment had come when Dean had pulled him to the side last night in a short brief quiet moment for them and told him about the Cage and Michael, the very same being who had once told Dean free will didn't exist, who had prompted Dean to believe in it only more, but Dean had just given a numb report and then moved on.

Until Dean wanted to talk, Sam's hands were bound, he didn't have the time to poke and prod his brother into confessing something again. And they didn't have the time for the breakdowns that would follow.

All of them were hanging from thing strings.

One wrong step and the whole construction would come down on them.

So in true Winchester fashion they kept on ignoring the problem for another night.

Upon returning to the high school and for now assuring only the sheriff that the problem was solved and they would open the zone back up tomorrow, they parted ways. Because that was what they did now, avoiding each other to get a moment of comfort. Not too long ago that had been completely different.

Dean went off to either scowl at the wall or turn Baby upside down until he found his last alcohol stashes, Sam knew that if they didn't find some kind of light soon, he would find his brother clutching a bottle 24/7 again. Cas laid down and that worried Sam more than his brother's already well known self-destructive behavior, he knew by now when he needed to step in, Dean had a whole book of warning signs in his mind, but their angel had never been this... lost.

Even after he had become human, even after making this huge mistake with Sam's souls and the Leviathans and blaming himself for everything, Cas had always kept his head up somehow. There had always been something that had kept him going, admittedly most of the time it had been Dean's strength and Dean's up-and-at-them attitude. Dean had lost that, Cas saw their friendship as lost and the man he saw as his Father still had killed his son with absolute disregard to caring even a little.

Rowena made herself as comfortable as possible in that little office they had commanded and took to doing some research, which meant Sam lost his phone but he was too tired to keep replying to hunters' frantic questions over what was going on anyway. She told him to get some rest but Sam had never felt less like sleeping.

And on the list of reasons: three billions spirits haunting Earth, an Archangel possibly out for their blood at any moment while wearing their brother's face, his big brother's clinical depression spike, his best friend's depressive grief, the shot wound on his shoulder that hurt with every breath he took, the visions that had flared up just yesterday.

And a six year old girl clutching a pillow to her chest, sitting alone on a gym mattress while her mother was comforting another woman three rows down, if Sam wasn't mistaken it was a parent of one of the killed girls. Out of all the people they had managed to save and evacuate here, only those two really knew the truth, and where the mother found a good way of distracting herself, her daughter didn't have that luck.

"Hey," Sam said softly and knelt down on the edge of the mattress, he had taken off his FBI shirt already and his feet were killing him but he couldn't risk taking them off here, anything could happen at any moment. "I got something for you." Round brown eyes looked at him as he pulled the iron necklace out of his pockets, he had taken his own moment to turn Baby upside down earlier to find what he knew was in there. Strictly speaking it wasn't theirs but unfortunately there was zero chance for the real owner to return, and he knew she would have liked the gesture now.

Small hands carefully took the necklace from him, it wasn't something overly pretty, iron didn't shine like silver did and the metal wasn't formed into delicate patterns or something. The necklace had a little charm on it though that protected against more evil still.

"It's not very pretty, I know, but if you were it the ghosts cannot possess you. Do you know what that means?" She nodded upon his question and held the necklace out for him again, pulling up her hair with the other hand. He fastened it around her neck and she patted it when he was done. "Before we leave, I'll give your Mama some things to keep you safe in your home still, I promise. The ghosts won't be able to come in, they won't be able to hurt you in your home." He couldn't do it with anyone, people wouldn't listen to him, but this girl and her mother knew the truth now. "You still remember why you can't tell anyone, right?"

"It would make them all too scared and then too many people would get hurt," she answered him and he smiled at her. "I forgot your name, Mister."

"It's Sam, just Sam."

She shuffled closer and leaned in, lowering her voice to make sure no one could hear her but him, "Will more angels come and save us?" She wanted to know and chanced a glance over to where Cas was sleeping on another gym mattress in a corner of the assembly hall, Sam's heart squeezed painfully as he swallowed heavily and took a moment to reply. Once upon a long time ago he had thought just like her, he had believed that God was watching over them and that angels were protecting the innocent and saving good people.

No bubble had ever been burst more violent.

"They're really busy right now," he explained and lying was torture, "there are many other places where the ghosts are troubling people because God got angry, and my friends and I cannot be anywhere." And the girl nodded, took it in as truth and nothing but the truth. And why wouldn't she? She had never seen before how Heaven really worked. She had never experienced that Cas was the exception and not the rule. She had never been an Archangel's chew toy. "You'll be safe now... I fear I forgot your name again, too."

"Eileen."

And there was that moment of ringing bells in his ears and something blocking his throat and he couldn't breathe and he couldn't swallow. 

Unbeknownst to his inner crisis and the pain flaring up like a torch in his lungs, the little girl shuffled closer still until her knees were touching Sam's, warmed up and now clearly in a chattering mood. "My full name is Eileen Gabriella Martin."

If this was still a part in Chuck's stupid story the title of this chapter was easily 'Sam's Breakdown Caused by Adorable Six-Year-Old'.

"That's a really beautiful name," he somehow managed to get out after brown eyes expectantly blinked up at him. "You know," he took a deep breath and tapped a finger against the charm now resting on her chest, "that necklace once belonged to a friend of mine, and her name was Eileen, too. I'm sure she'll be watching over you now, keep you safe." He was lying straight through his teeth with promises but this was a little girl who was scared of the world right now, however much he could take away of it, he would try. "And a while back I knew a very powerful angel, his name was Gabriel."

"You know the Archangel Gabriel?" Eileen gasped out and her hands flew up to touch the charm on her necklace, "I'm named for him, Mama told me that. She said that I don't have a Papa so I need someone else looking over me. She said angels are always watching over us." Yeah, unless they want you to wear them to Prom and you say no and they don't know how to handle that.

"They are," he told the girl nevertheless because he couldn't tell her the truth, couldn't tell her that the angel she was named for to protect her was dead.

What monster would tell a six-year-old that her guardian angel was dead?

"Can you sit with me until my Mama comes back?" Eileen wanted to know and Sam nodded before even thinking about it, the only thing he had wanted to do was to rest anyway, and he could do that here just as well. And judging by the distraught woman Eileen's mother was consoling, it would still take some time for her to return anyway. "Do you know any stories?" Eileen asked him after she had laid down with the pillow and blankets that had been handed out, the school doubled as a tornado shelter and was prepared for emergencies. Sam smiled and settled himself down more comfortably as well.

"I know some," he teased and leaned back against the pillar at his back, grateful for the second pillow Eileen handed him, "anything specific?"

"No monsters," she specified and Sam could only understand that so well, he thought for a moment and then got surprised when Eileen hugged him. Carefully he wrapped his healthy arm around her, too, even the sting in his injured shoulder fell away for that one moment. Tears sprung to his eyes and he blinked them away. "You looked like you needed one," Eileen said when she pulled away again and then pulled her pillow closer before lying down again.

Sam took a moment to center himself again and began to tell a story.

\--

Eileen fell asleep someone in the middle of his second story and Sam didn't realized that he had followed her until he woke up when Rowena pulled a blanket over him.

"Go back to sleep, Sam," she shushed him when he made to open his lips, "plenty of time to continue saving the world tomorrow. Castiel is fast asleep and your brother crashed in the car as well finally. The hunters are patrolling the school, and I'll keep my eyes open, too." He nodded in thanks because he really was too tired to speak and when he resettled back to where he had slipped onto the mattress while falling asleep, he realized that Eileen had plastered himself against his side.

A little ball of pink deeply asleep.

"Sleep, Samuel."

He closed his eyes and dreamed of a world where this little girl sleeping so peacefully because she knew she was protected by him wasn't just a kid he had saved but his, his own. And nothing about that dream turned into a nightmare.


End file.
